The boardwalk is rotting and dilapidated, but not yet abandoned.

A few of the wooden stands have crumpled, and blackened tufts of fur from the stuffed toy prizes flutter shyly through the rubble in the wind. Leaning against a rusty railing, a bench is caked in dust, upon which a child sits, tear tracks slicing through the dark grime on his cheeks.

It is difficult to tell the time under the darkness the smoke in the sky casts around us, but if the child’s watch is correct, it must be a little past noon here.

Though of course, I find Earthly concepts of time confusing. When days for me often blend together, time diminishes to a steady background thrum.

I sit down on the bench beside him, stretching my legs. Despite having made myself visible to him, the child does not seem to notice me. He lets out a few sad hiccups but otherwise stays silent and motionless.

I do not mind. I am used to silence. For so long it has only been me, myself, and I; surely a being like me can learn to adapt.

The smoke wafts close to the ground, threatening to envelop us like some sort of wicked fog, and the child takes a few ragged breaths before giving in to a coughing fit. Having witnessed many similar scenes before, I quickly notice what is missing and find myself asking the child, Where is your mask?

Fully expecting the boy to ignore me, I am surprised when he wheezes out a reply, “I left it at home.”

I pause, unused to conversation after all those years hurtling through space, looking for somewhere whole enough to land. (Although, every world once whole will fall apart eventually, and as one who has witnessed many a dying planet, this one is coming quite close.)

Why? I settle on asking.

By then the child has stopped coughing. “I’m sick of wearing it. I can’t breathe.”

Stay outside a little too long without it, and you really won’t be able to breathe.

“My mom says I can’t play anymore.”

Play?

“With my friends.”

I look out over the dark water, at the black smoke that kisses its surface by the gray buildings a little ways further down the beach.

Your mom might be right, I say, and he begins to shake, but not cry—a relief, as I would prefer to avoid dealing with sobbing children.

I sit and think about where I can go next, never tending to stay in one place for too long. Give a planet a few millennia—it can get boring quick. And so I often find myself flitting from system to system, galaxy to galaxy, staying just long enough to see the stars begin to dim.

A depressingly lonesome and immutably eternal existence, but I make it work.

A few minutes later, when he stills once more, the child blurts out, “Guess how old I am.”

Hm?

“Guess how old I am.”

Let’s see…are you…seven?

“I turned six and a half yesterday.”

Six and a half. That’s a big number, I lie.

“Yeah. I’m older than a lot of my friends.”

I’m also very old. Except I don’t have many friends, unfortunately.

“That’s sad. I have a lot of friends. Do you know Cyrus?”

I’m afraid I don’t.

“Oh. He’s my best friend. He moved away, though. His parents didn’t like it here.”

You should probably wear your mask.

“I hate my mask.”

And that is that.

We sit in silence on opposite sides of the dingy bench for what could be ten minutes, but could also be an hour, until a girl runs down the rickety wood of the boardwalk to the boy.

“Neo, where have you been?” she splutters.

She falls to her knees in front of him, brushing her dark hair away from her pink oxygen mask. It reaches to her eyebrows, with built-in shaded goggles that create the effect of oversized insect eyes, around which she seems to have hot-glued a handful of blue plastic gems. I cannot see any part of her face.

The boy, Neo, looks at me for the first time then, dark green eyes wide and helpless. I look back, silent.

“What are you looking for, Neo, look at me,” the girl says sharply, grabbing his chin, turning his face back to her. She has a blue oxygen mask in her other hand, one with little designs of fishes along the sides, and tries to force it on him.

The boy screams—“Ida, stop it!”—and waves his fists around—“Don’t hit me, Neo, you know mom’s going to yell at both of us if you don’t put this on”—desperately trying to keep the mask from touching his face. Eventually he grabs it and throws it over the railing behind us, and I watch it sink into the disgusting water, fascinated by the gruesome juxtaposition of smiling cartoon fish brushing against ones that are floating and lifeless on the way down.

Ida seems livid, and I half expect her to hit him back. But then she notices the tear tracks on her brother’s face.

All the tension seems to dissipate from her body, and after a few moments, she sighs, raising her hands to the back of her head, unfastening her bedazzled oxygen mask. When she removes it from her face it becomes evident to me just how alike they look, with the same green doe eyes and curly black hair. Except, where her brother’s eyes still shine, hers are rimmed in red, boasting telltale dark circles beneath. But despite her haggard and adultish mien, it seems to me that she cannot yet be out of high school.

“I don’t want to wear them either, you know,” I watch her whisper to her brother. Her eyes fill with tears and she bows her head, wiping her face with her arm. “I hate them, too.”

Neo stares vacantly ahead through the gloom, identical green eyes welling up with identical tears, as his sister leans her head against his knees, holding her face in her hands and trembling almost violently now with the effort to contain what could either be sobs or a coughing fit. “I hate them so much.” She sniffs, and, as an afterthought: “Hate is a very strong word, don’t use it, Neo.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

The girl raises her head and wipes her eyes. “Wanna go home?”

Neo nods, and she stands, scooping him up in her arms. The pink mask sits forlornly on the ground, and she pretends not to notice it, carding her fingers through her brother’s hair.

As they make their way, he casts a final longing glance towards me, eyes green and glistening, before burying his face in his sister’s shoulder.

I leave the boardwalk.

“Oh, look at you! You’re all sunburnt.”

Dr. Tofu was covered in hideous red-black gashes. His entire face and chest was a solid plate of ash. His sides were spattered with red marks, each one carving a dendritic cut into the side of his body. His pale white back was melted to the lounge chair. He looked kind of like crème brûlée.

“Dude, what did I tell you about falling asleep in the sun?”

It wasn’t clear if Dr. Tofu was still asleep or not. His face had melted all over his head. In any case, he’d been asleep for fifty-three days.

“You’re a bit goofy sometimes, you know. C’mere, lemme fix you up.”

She pulled out a dull pocket knife, sharpened it haphazardly on the diamond of her wedding ring, and began to cut his back from the chair. While she did that, she checked in with him.

“Look. I get that you’re jealous that DJ Pineapple talks to Miss Broken Engine. I’ve seen you going to the gym. I’ve heard you talking about your ‘beach bod’. And I know you’ve thought about dying your hair green, which, by the way—don’t.”

Her hand slipped, and she accidentally sliced through a soft patch in Dr. Tofu’s side and through his chest.

“Damn. Sorry. But that’s not why she likes you, dude! She likes you because you’re fun, and interesting, and willing to try new things. She goes to his shows because she wants to experience new music the way you always are.”

She finished sawing his back and moved on to his giant singular leg.

“I bet if you got into his music, or at least gave it a shot, it’d be another thing you two can chat about, another thing you can see together, and you’ll both laugh about the time you thought he was gonna steal her away. Just the same way you’ll laugh at the time you went off to some beach in the middle of nowhere to tan, and nobody remembered to pick you up for… never mind.”

She finished sawing him off and flipped him over before taking out a sharpie and drawing a face on his non-burnt side. She couldn’t remember exactly what his face used to look like, but she remembered bushy eyebrows and a strong nose, and she improvised the rest.

“Actually, they don’t have to know about the burns. Hold still.”

Dr. Tofu held perfectly still.

“You sure are lucky we’re not on Earth. If the Sun were any closer you’d be toast.”

Dr. Tofu slid in his chair a bit and his face turned slightly towards her.

“Oh, don’t give me that.”

Dr. Tofu gave her the silent treatment.

“I didn’t mean, like actual toast. You food people are always so sensitive.” She began to cut the char off his back.

“Whatever. None of them have to know. I’ll just tell them you were doing repair work. We aren’t too far from the crash, anyway. With Dr. Tofu on the case, we’ll be back home in no time, huh?”

The cutting was taking a long time. The knife moved in an erratic cycle of getting caught and released. A couple minutes went by.

“While we’re here I’ll let you in on a little secret. Back on Earth I knew someone kinda like you. He was a med student, a real nice guy, a lot like you when you got here. Total sweetheart. But he was always so nervous to talk to people. He’d always be on the parts of the beach nobody went to, and if anyone showed up near him, he’d quietly move his stuff to another beach. After waiting about fifteen minutes, as not to make them feel like they did something wrong.”

She squinted her eyes to see if Dr. Tofu’s new eyes would follow the blade as it cut through him. It kinda looked like they did. Whenever she drew a new face, she always squinted to see if their eyes looked like they moved, and when it actually worked it made her day.

“But look at you now, Dr. Tofu. I know it’s a bit early to say, but I think—”

The knife slipped out of a rough patch and launched itself straight into her thigh.

She didn’t say anything at first. After a brief, cut-off gasp, she started to breathe heavily as she slowly buckled to the ground. Guiding herself down with her hands, she sat herself down on the sand as slowly as she could. The knife was way in there. Blood flowed from the corners of the gash.

“Well then.”

As she motioned to get up, she suddenly felt a bout of weakness before she collapsed backwards onto the sand, prostrate.

“Well then!”

She breathed heavily for a few seconds, then a minute, then she lost track of time.

“Is anyone here a doctor?”

She forced a smile and looked up at him. The knife thrust had turned his face away from her.

“It was a little funny.”

Dr. Tofu didn’t think so.

After an unknowable amount of time bleeding on the ground, the glare from her wedding ring caught her in the eye.

“It’s the same Sun, huh?” she said.

She noticed Dr. Tofu was looking straight at the Sun.

“Hey. Don’t, uh… don’t look at the Sun. Didn’t you go to medical school? Haven’t you… didn’t you just make this mistake?” She was trying really hard to think of something funny.

“Wow, that’s bad. That’s looking really bad. Wow.”

Moving her leg was excruciating, even without putting any weight on it. With incredible effort she pushed herself up to get a look at her base. It was a speck on the horizon.

“I’ll just stay here for a bit. Heal up. And then I’m right back at it.”

Dr. Tofu’s face began to run again. A glob of wet Sharpie started to roll down his eye.

“Hey, now, what’s the matter?” She pushed herself upwards and wiped away the black splotch with her finger. “It’ll be alright. We just gotta stay positive.”

Her vision began to grow dark at the edges, slowly but unceasingly.

“I wasn’t gonna say this, for like, at least another couple months. Wanted to resolve the whole DJ Pineapple thing before I did this. But I, uh, want you to take this.”

She took off her wedding ring and put it in his hand.

“No, not like that, silly!”

Dr. Tofu had not said anything.

“Wish I had the matching one. But. Dude. I think Miss Broken Engine wants you to marry her.”

Dr. Tofu was silent.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know you’ve noticed, dude. I know…”

Her vision suddenly lurched further into darkness.

“I, uh, guess I don’t have time for the whole speech I was writing for this. But when you get back to base, I want you to do it. Like, immediately. I want you to promise you’ll do it, as soon as I close my eyes.”

Dr. Tofu was silent.

“Blink twice if you’re not gonna do it.”

Dr. Tofu blinked zero times.

“Hell yeah, dude.”

A few years later, a rescue team arrived to find numerous cargo objects scattered around a temporary base, among them a shriveled-up pineapple wearing cheap sunglasses and a 20-foot tall ruined ship engine with a bonnet taped on. A few hundred meters away they found the body of the sole surviving pilot next to a burned, melted mass of tofu.

Light poured through the house as the night fluttered away. When the sun achieved full vitality, beams of light reflected upon the glass table, the glass clock, the glass sofa, and glass everything, all through the clear glass walls of the house. Tommy never understood why he had to live in a house that gave him zero privacy. He knew his mother must have chosen it for a reason that made sense to her, but the glass house endlessly bothered him. For him, no reason could be worth the discomfort it created. 

Living with only reflective glass, he would sit on, observe through, and be discerned all through the means of the cold panels. It gave him ample time to reflect and to perceive the world, as nothing hindered his views. Some days, he thought he was locked in a glass cage, the invasive eyes of uninvited visitors peering into his house. The flashes of phones taking photos of him and the glass furniture mixed with the sunlight were blinding; he even saw frowns form when he refused to pose for their photos. However, sometimes, he found the glass appealing. It allowed him insight into different familial situations like the family of squirrels that collected acorns every morning together or the blue jays that consumed worms together on the oak tree. There was discomfort, but also serenity in his life, a true paradox. Though, he would constantly wake up every morning more restless than the day before. He continued to feel pangs of perturbation, why? Tommy hated what the house held and represented more than he appreciated what he gained from it. It held the delicate soul and body of his mother, someone who Tommy felt may break just as quickly as their house could. 

In his days of reflection, Tommy thought about himself and his ideals. He landed on one simple idea: in an earlier incarnation, he must have been a rose.  

With a garden filled with roses, Tommy knew much about them. He knew roses were the most delicate, attention-dependent flower, a symbol of love, purity, complexity, and other striking characteristics. They required constant watering, trimming, and guidance to fully bloom, the human equivalent of parental care and love. He must have pricked someone with one of his thorns in the past because his current experiences reflected that of a neglected rose, left to shrivel away. It pained him to wait for his next sip of water, a new soil refresh, and a simple gaze of admiration. These characteristics that showed weakness had stayed with him in this life, but he needed to change that. Determined to pursue a new path, he knew that someday, he needed to escape and break away from the other delicate people and counterparts around him if he wanted to live a new life, one filled with care, admiration, and love. 

–  June 14th, 2025 – 

At 4:30 AM, Tommy heard his mother open the window in her room that opened up to their garden. Putting his ear to the frosted door closing of her room, he could not see but instead listened to her crying out. Her tears held the effects of her husband’s absence, destroying her and creating a deep desire for love, acknowledgment, and effort. Though Tommy could not hear her very clearly, under her cries were words. This time to say her words out loud was the only thing that kept her going. Making sure no one was near, she would speak to the roses, sharing her own story- one full of hope but laced with guilt. She knew she was the reason Tommy could never prosper. Her constant desire for attention and care had left her with the inability to offer the same affection to her son. She would keep waiting though, every day, until she found her savior. Two hours later, she exhausted herself for the day, returning to her bed to sleep. This same cycle repeated the next morning, another rose left yearning for care. 

Pushing himself away from her door, Tommy delicately grasped the handle of the front door, escaping the horrendous house that held the desolate desperation of his mother and him. Every morning when his mother stopped crying, he left the house unnoticed by his mother. However today he had a special errand since it was National Rose Day. He had to go get a new packet of rose seeds from Frêle’s Floral Shop.

Trying to remain distant from Frêle, Tommy slipped through the aisles and got his seeds. By planting new seeds each year, Tommy hoped to give flowers the love and care they deserved. It should not be a privilege to be cared for, one of Tommy’s most important beliefs. Ready to pay with the cash his father left for him and his mother every month, Tommy finally faced Frêle. Her reputation preceded her since she was known for her brittle, delicate personality. She would hide from people, especially after past events that shattered her self-confidence. She immersed herself in flowers, allowing herself to slowly bloom with them. Tommy saw parts of him in her and that terrified him. It made him feel vulnerable since he was doing the same. Was he putting endless care in his roses to make up for his lack of love, leaving him to never pursue his freedom? Confusion coursed through his mind, and the desire to leave everything took over. But still, he was unsure about leaving his mother since she was and will always be his soil. Though, as a delicate soul herself, she needed someone to put her roots in, how could she be a rose without her own soil? 

On his way back home, Tommy looked through his mother’s open window and saw her lying motionless on the bed. For the first time in a week since he dared to lay eyes on her, Tommy felt immense guilt. He knew he would always be her son, but it did not feel that way. It was not his fault her husband was absent, so why did she treat him as though it was? His father was the one who chose to leave him, but his mother also left. In the past five years since her husband’s departure, she never asked Tommy how his day was. She never cooked lunch for him. She never hugged him. She never went with him to get groceries. She would never eat a meal with him, choosing to eat at midnight, in the utter dark. She chose to have the whole house be glass, all for her to hide away from the reality of life. Only physically present to visitors and Tommy, she remained emotionally unavailable. She brought a rose into life with the known knowledge that they require love, yet she only made him count the days for a new beginning, one free from its toxic provider. Her life was of a rose and soil, though she was failing in both aspects. 

– 2 years later –

 Absolute devastation travels through the cold, desolate house. The world could look in and see the dejected eyes of the mother, the hollowed identity of Tommy, and the fear. The only aspect of their house that had glowed throughout the years were the roses Tommy poured his soul into. Now, though, they were nothing but an array of shriveled petals, muted in color, strewn across the yard, and suffocating the soil. 

The emotional toll of living in this suffocating glass house had built up. He incessantly craved a chance to find comfort and tranquility, he could no longer wait. He wished he was normal and had a loving family, but he never got that. He got cold shoulders from outsiders and abandonment from his mother. The financial backing of his father helped support Tommy and his mother, but was that enough? Did it allow his father to abandon him, causing Tommy to be alone in this cruel world? He finally understood how his mother must feel, he no longer could care for his roses as he used to. Tommy thought and thought, he had ample time to do so. Till the sun went down, the house allowed in light to glare at him and his mother.

This morning, instead of going out to physically escape his reality, Tommy decided he needed to talk to his mother. He was at his breaking point and knew he was losing his chance of finally becoming a strong, beautiful rose. His mother was still delicate, and he knew it was likely too late to save her. Still, he wanted to sit with her and finally gain her motherly love. So, Tommy decided to explain to her that he was still present even though his father was not. Maybe he could help her feel less lonely and seek company in him. Set on this plan, Tommy approached his mother. Seeing her at the window, he knew this would be his best chance. He said hello, but his mother did not turn. He said he was feeling sad and miserable, yet she did not console him. He said he felt broken, but his mom did not try to mend him. She lay, waiting for his last petals to fall on her.

Crack. Tommy shattered the glass table, the glass chairs, the glass plates, the glass doors, the glass everything. He ran outside and took a long glance at his withered roses. Looking at it, he felt obsolete: he failed to be a rose and soil. His purpose was gone, he had no soil to prosper through and ultimately no reason left to stay. He had become his mother, unable to nurture himself and others. He had to put himself first, it was his only change. With one last glance through the glass, he left. 

Crack. Tommy’s mother had heard everything her son said. Fixated on the fallen petals in the garden, she was ashamed and destroyed. She chose to encase her house in glass to keep light in, one of the biggest contributors to a rose’s nutrition. That was not enough though and she knew it. The one thing a flower needs to survive, which if absent would cause imminent death, is soil. It was what she was hopelessly waiting for, something Tommy knew he could never receive unless he left her. Looking out the window, she saw the sun shining on the fallen petals, and that destroyed her and her fragile heart.

I gaze at her; she is all I can see. I try to squint and see her limbs, hair, and expression. All I see instead of these features is an extreme aura radiating from her and the art in her sexuality. Her virtue has a distinct appeal, and I feel lost. I often try to do my subject’s due diligence, but how can I do that with her with just a pen stroke? My eyes go blind. I can no longer see her curves, lips, eyes, or anything.  As does the sun, she holds me in a trance. She is beautiful. Anything I try will never do her justice. 

The color of her smooth skin, flushed cheeks, supple breasts, and radiant, thick hair is suppressed by moonshine. A single eclipse would wash her skin, leaving her beauty to diminish or vanish entirely; I was sure of it. As an artist, I knew that the beauty in front of me could not be truly acknowledged just by my simple eyes. How could I ever try to paint a rendition?

As creatures, we often seek to find the unique, appealing traits of everyone around us. The appearance and disposition of others matter, regardless of what we believe. Unintentional judgments and beliefs hold as much value as calculated ones. Just as a small stone enters the water, the impact of these traits make ripples in the human mind is still clear: first impressions matter. 

So, what is my first impression of her? Of course, it was never the physical attributes. It was her confidence. She is proud of who she is. Her stature, poise, lifted head, and set eyebrows all track this belief. She embraces her identity, accepts her sexuality and presence, and soaks in the societal attitudes around her. She is herself and will always be herself, even if implored not to be. She is the definition of my art: redoubtable beauty.

My journey as a portrait painter has been focused on the central question: is life an imitation of art or is art an imitation of life? This may never be answered, but in moments such as these, I find neither true. Life is impossible without art and who would make art if there was no life? We must fully forget independence in art, this scenario is the pinnacle evidence that art relies on the dependency of the world and vice versa. We mustn’t forget who we are beyond our words, relations, choices, and expressions. The world will continue to spin, beauty will continue to be blinding, and most of all, art will be present. 

I look back at my blank canvas. Guilt seeps in. She will think her body is repelling and she will never return. I have to paint something, I have to. I look at my palette, and it comes to me. I will draw what she makes me feel: certainty for the future.

Under the stained glass window sat Anna, surrounded by a heap of novels and notebooks. As recurring as the sunrise hitting the panels of glass was Anna’s visit to her local university’s library. Throwing her bike under the oak tree, she would sneak through the fire escape to sit at her “hidden” spot. In the five years she had kept this routine, she was never disturbed by anyone. Her books and her chair always remained in the same spot as she would leave it the previous evening. The only two things that changed were the wooden desk she claimed as home base, an evolving victim to the countless markings Anna had created while studying, and the students who would work on the level beneath her. Other than that, her surroundings seemed perpetually uniform.

From her space, she had a hawk’s eye of the library’s chaos. Some days it was a calm lull and others it was a restless tide that disturbed her from her work. There were the students who came in alone: shoulders hunched, face pinched, carrying the burden of a backpack teeming with what could only be their books, computer, and headphones. There were those who came in groups: laughing relentlessly, distracted by every little noise, and often connected in a feeling of group suffering of needing to study. Her favorite type of student to see on the lower level was that who observed as she did. A sufficient number of students fell under this category, but one individual stood out to her in particular, someone whose hazel eyes darted around the room, capturing Anna’s attention. That was all it did; Anna would fixate on the behaviour of this individual for a few minutes until she focused on her own work.

Even though there was a clear view of the lower level from Anna’s little spot, she knew that they could not see her from up there. She never dared to step foot and guarantee this claim for herself, but something about this space under the sill seemed invisible. So, when on a Tuesday at 1:30 pm, Anna climbed up the stairs to her spot, it was to her surprise that her seat was occupied. Her books were no longer chaotically organized on the quaint, reclaimed wood table. No, in fact, her plush blanket was draped across the back of this person. Her cupboard of snacks was open, and Anna’s eyes trailed to her tin of butter cookies haphazardly thrown on the floor, empty. Confused and curious, she tapped on their shoulder- pulling them away from their computer which was playing a viewing of the latest rocket launch. Their words did not register, the only thing Anna saw were the same piercing hazel eyes that were now looking directly into her own. Anna could only wonder what this girl must be thinking- was she categorizing Anna into a group of students as she does? Which one would she fall under? So, the table was visible? Anna must have been staring for quite a while because the girl spoke with some emphasis, introducing herself as Lainey. Entranced by the stain window, she wanted to get a closer look. Stumbling on a door that was overshadowed by the library’s main entrance, she climbed up a tight, eerie staircase and found this nook. I thought I would be the first to find this spot, the first to explore the place I come to every day. I can see it’s lived in, though; I am glad. It would be a shame to leave such a beautiful place untouched. Well, I must go now. I do believe you would want to keep it the way you had before. Anna nodded instinctively, though she felt something in her stomach that resembled how she felt when she saw a new face come into the library. 

In the five years she had come to this space, she was disturbed by only one person. Her books moved and were often smothered by Lainey’s. Her chair was now on the other side of the desk, facing a taller, more plush chair. The only thing that remained the same was that the desk continued to grow more deformed and the window continued to pass light.